Shoppers should be cautious of security on Cyber Monday

The holiday shopping weekend crowds have cleared out from the shopping malls, making a run for their home computers for this year's Cyber Monday sales.

It's expected that consumers will spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion dollars on Monday alone while they shop the internet.

The expected record-breaking year isn't from in-person holiday sales, but rather shopping from your computer on Cyber Monday.

"It's grown year over year. Last year it was up about 20 percent. It hit a record total of just over $2 billion,” Hatter said.

More than 130 million people virtually swiped their credit card last Cyber Monday. Many of the major retailers have already rolled out Cyber Monday deals well in advance. Some of those deals, will last all week.

"I work a lot, and I'm a student. I don't time to always go to the store. Cyber Monday's a lot more convenient for me,” said Cincinnati resident Ashley Cox.

Reports say you might want to check out the usual suspects like Wal-Mart, Target, Amazon and so on. To get the best deal you can, you might want to search the web for a "deal aggregator."

"Basically what they're trying to do is combine information from multiple different retailers to figure out what is the best deal,” Hatter said.

Scammers are preying on those deals. Be careful of public Wi-Fi connections when shopping, what you click in your email, and how you pay for all those gifts are just some safety tips experts pass along this holiday shopping season.

"If they can break in and steal your debit card, then potentially they have access to your direct account. They can take money directly out of your account,” Hatter told FOX19 NOW.